


Just Like Any Other Boy

by monkiainen



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: But The Doctor wants to save everyone, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Reluctant Jack does not want to be a hero, The Doctor can't save everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 06:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12835701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/pseuds/monkiainen
Summary: The Doctor wants to save everyone, regardless of the cost of what it will do to him. Jack is the who has to pick up the pieces.





	Just Like Any Other Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wojelah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wojelah/gifts).



When you put together the last of Time Lords, and a man who can't die, the end results are sometimes… surprising, to say the least. To the Doctor Jack was an anomaly, the thing that shouldn't exist but it still – a fixed point in time, defying the laws the Doctor was taught to respect. And yet he was drawn to Jack like a moth to the flame, knowing that he will only get hurt in the end but not being able to resist the charm that made Jack _Jack_.

Oh yes, they fought, like all the couples do, but then Jack flashed his perfect smile and the Doctor forgot what he was supposed to say. Damn that man, and damn his perfect teeth.

The Doctor wasn't perfect either, not at all. Sometimes the weight of the world was so much, too much that the Doctor cursed the day all the other Time Lords had ceased to exist. Why was he the only one left? Why was he the one who had to keep on saving the world over and over again? He tried and tried and tried, and nothing changed. There were still wars and genocides and death all over and he just couldn't save them all.

On those days Jack didn't say anything – he was just _there_ , silently supporting the Doctor. Sometimes Jack cooked the Doctor's favourite foods; sometimes he gave the Doctor a massage, soothing his tense muscles. And some nights, when things got really, really bad, they would lock themselves to the main bedroom and fuck through the night. There was nothing gentle about their coupling – it was raw, primal, and animalistic. The pain is so close to the pleasure, someone once said, and it was true, so true. Sometimes you just had to feel some pain to feel whole again.

On a mutual agreement they never spoke about Her. It was too painful to both of them to even think about Her, let alone saying how much they missed Her. It was better not to say anything. Even if on Earth everything reminded them of Her, the way she talked and walked and smiled. Not all the memories were preferable to remember.

Jack knew that there would be a time when he wasn't going to be enough for the Doctor anymore. He wasn't the One for the Doctor, even if they complemented each other on certain areas. The truth was Jack wasn't interested in being a hero, not one bit. He had just sort of become one when he started travelling with the Doctor; the last Time Lord who wanted to save everyone, anywhere, any time, not caring one bit if he made it alive or not. Jack tried to be the voice of reason, he really did, but being immortal didn't automatically mean he had any leverage over a 900-and-some years old alien. Even if the alien looked like a very good-looking human male, and had a quirky sense of humour and even bigger heart.

The Doctor… oh, he did love Jack, in a way. Not in a "I want to spend the rest of my life with you" way, but love is still love even if it's not meant to last for an eternity. The Doctor was… content, for a lack of a better word. Yes, he felt itchy and jumpy every time he was near Jack, but that was because of what Jack was, not because who he was. And still the Doctor wanted to share his life with Jack, wanted someone to share his adventures with him. Oh, the Doctor knew very well Jack didn't care about saving the world from itself the way the Doctor did, but at least Jack was in the same dimension with him. That couldn't be said about everyone the Doctor knew – and a part of his heart was lost again with those thoughts.

Jack was there, yes, he was. Maybe not always so willingly, and definitely not quite so ready to understand why the Doctor wanted to save even the nastiest villains from their fate. The Doctor wanted to believe everyone had at least something good in them – he had to, or otherwise the Doctor would lose his mind in the midst of all the evil in the world. The world was not black and white – there were plenty of hues of grey to choose from.

But if you are always looking for the hues of greys, one might sometimes miss something important.

They were stranded in a hostile planet, the enemy had TARDIS, and the Doctor had lost his screwdriver. Was this it? The day the Time Lords would cease to exist completely? There was certain kind of irony there – the very people the Doctor had tried to save had turned on them when they had realised what the Doctor really was. An alien travelling through space and time? An abnormally that shouldn't exist, not at least to this race. In their mind one simply didn't travel through space, or time for that matter, unless one was a demon sent to destroy their race and their planet. There was no reasoning with them, especially after they had discovered by accident that Jack couldn't die. It was a bad thing, a very bad thing.

To this day Jack has no idea how the Doctor managed to get them out of that hostile planet, with TARDIS no less. All Jack knows that something broke inside the Doctor that day, permanently. He was not the same anymore, even if he pretended on the surface that everything was alright. It was like living through Her permanent missing from their lives all over again, only this time no matter Jack did nothing worked. Even TARDIS wasn't able to help, and that was saying a lot.

Slowly, gradually, the Doctor put himself back together. He was not the same he was beforehand, how could he be? What was the point of trying to save everyone if they started the wars, the fighting, all over again when the Doctor left? 

Jack reminded the Doctor of the better days, of the days when their help was met with gratefulness. There was still hope left in the world, they just had to find it. With those words they let TARDIS choose their next destination. They still had adventures to go to.


End file.
